"The preschoolers were fascinated, looking at their classroom through the lens of an iPad camera, watching animated images pop up as a cheerful voice told them: Feed apples to a pig behind a haystack. Select the carnival ride located between two sets of balloons. While the game delighted these 3- and 4-year-olds, they were actually participating in a serious research project that is developing an important foundation for their future in math - spatial thinking and its integrated vocabulary, a skill typically overlooked in early education."
"The students used augmented reality scenes, testing the app on the iPad, to understand an object's position in relation to other objects. With feedback from teachers such as Chelsea Attride in New York, the research was conducted by the nonprofit Education Development Center in partnership with Boston radio station WGBH Education Foundation and education nonprofit Digital Promise."
""That was the really new part of what we were doing," said Ashley Lewis Presser, senior research scientist at the Education Development Center. "We were able to create these spatial tasks that kids would do that were really fun and engaging.""
Augmented reality scenes paired with hands-on activities were used to teach preschool children spatial awareness and integrated spatial vocabulary. Children interacted via iPad tasks that required locating and relating objects in space, such as feeding a pig behind a haystack or selecting items positioned between others. The project aimed to create engaging spatial tasks that build a foundation for later math and STEM learning. The effort involved the Education Development Center in partnership with WGBH Education Foundation and Digital Promise, with teacher feedback informing design. Limited existing preschool curricula for spatial thinking motivated the development of these learning experiences.
Read at Los Angeles Times
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